Dielectric materials have been used in the semiconductor manufacturing field for many purposes. They can be used to electrically isolate one region from another region. Additionally, the specific material chosen for the dielectric material may be utilized to help fine tune electromagnetic fields within semiconductor chips so that a wide variety of features may be obtained.
In one example, a capacitor may be formed by manufacturing a first capacitor electrode and a second capacitor electrode separated by a capacitor dielectric material. This capacitor dielectric material allows the first capacitor electrode and the second capacitor electrode to hold the charge when a current is applied. This allows the capacitor to be utilized to temporarily store charges as desired.
However, as the semiconductor devices get smaller and smaller, issues can arise regarding the dielectric layers. In particular, as semiconductor manufacturing races from the 40 nm process node and past the 28 nm process node, the current methods of forming these dielectric layers are simply insufficient to the tasks required to meet the performance and manufacturing specifications that are desired in today's competitive environment.
Corresponding numerals and symbols in the different figures generally refer to corresponding parts unless otherwise indicated. The figures are drawn to clearly illustrate the relevant aspects of the embodiments and are not necessarily drawn to scale.